Comments for idiolecthttp://idiolect.org.uk/notes
i must invent my own systemsSat, 24 Feb 2018 16:06:49 +0000hourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.4Comment on Seeking perspectives: how to arbitrate among our desires? by Josiehttp://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=6249&cpage=1#comment-321927
Sat, 24 Feb 2018 16:06:49 +0000http://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=6249#comment-321927Well according to Hegel the whole of human history is us working this out through a two-way iterative process of society moulding and creating individuals, and individuals moulding and creating society, and gradually we, hopefully, move towards greater human flourishing, assuming that that is what we all deeply want, but can’t do on our own.

I don’t really understand the details of this, but broadly I think that he is onto something.

]]>Comment on Facebook and democracy, reasons to be fearful by tomhttp://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=6227&cpage=1#comment-320629
Thu, 18 Jan 2018 17:19:42 +0000http://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=6227#comment-320629@hubert – I think I knew what you meant anyway. Thanks for the book recommendation
]]>Comment on Facebook and democracy, reasons to be fearful by Huberthttp://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=6227&cpage=1#comment-319980
Mon, 01 Jan 2018 14:28:35 +0000http://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=6227#comment-319980Sorry, read my comment again, and realized an unfortunate edit made me say the opposite of what I want.

Here’s what it should say (Tom, if you want to edit the original comment for clarity, please do):

It conveniently swipes the very real downsides of liberal democracy under the carpet, whereas that’s what we should be trying to fix.

]]>Comment on Facebook and democracy, reasons to be fearful by Huberthttp://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=6227&cpage=1#comment-319979
Mon, 01 Jan 2018 14:07:15 +0000http://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=6227#comment-319979Facebook could be changed, of course. But what would that solve? The genie is already out of the bottle. Moreover Facebook (or rather its owners) did not set out to have Trump elected. They tinkered with their product to make it ever more commercially successful and that created a fragmented public space that turns out to reward demagoguery. If Facebook stopped doing this, I have no doubt that another company would jump in and do exactly the same, and probably do it even “better”. That is the nature of a marketplace.

Blaming Facebook is effectively pretending that we are dealing with a mere technical glitch. It conveniently swipes the very real downsides of liberal democracy under the carpet.

]]>Comment on Facebook and democracy, reasons to be fearful by tomhttp://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=6227&cpage=1#comment-319769
Wed, 27 Dec 2017 10:07:23 +0000http://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=6227#comment-319769@Alberto – by common ground I mean the knowledge of what other people know. If we don’t agree on who is trustworthy, what constitutes the most important issues of the day, if we don’t even know what other people are being told, then it seems to me to remove the basic understanding required to have a discussion

@hubert – we could agree on this diagnosis, but facebook might still have some accelerating role. And, importantly, it could be changed to create different effects.

]]>Comment on Hey, remember RSS by tomhttp://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=6240&cpage=1#comment-319737
Tue, 26 Dec 2017 19:48:47 +0000http://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=6240#comment-319737Related:
“The things I want to do are strange, simple, and unprofitable”http://www.ftrain.com/20.html
]]>Comment on Hey, remember RSS by tomhttp://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=6240&cpage=1#comment-319730
Tue, 26 Dec 2017 19:19:52 +0000http://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=6240#comment-319730related: A few technical words about Upsideclown, and some thoughts about audiences and the web http://interconnected.org/home/2017/08/17/upsideclown
]]>Comment on Facebook and democracy, reasons to be fearful by Huberthttp://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=6227&cpage=1#comment-319173
Thu, 14 Dec 2017 18:40:31 +0000http://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=6227#comment-319173I’ll try an alternate explanation. It has more to do with quantity (or “big data” if you like buzzwords) than with quality.

After WW2, politics slowly turned into yet another consumer good. Except that unlike most consumer goods, it endures even when the consumer is disappointed, which creates even more disappointment. The big ideologies have faded (hard to complain about that actually) and hence we are all looking for our personal gratification rather than some “higher good” (am I the only one who has trouble even imagining not using brackets when writing “higher good”?) And the world, or society for that matter not having our very own personal happiness as their ultimate goal and actually having no goal at all, we are angry. Why don’t I get what I evidently deserve, since I desire it? I will Brexit to express my discontent. I will Trump you snotty elites who do not give me my just deserts.

Facebook and other, related technologies have sped up the process and increased the effects of this pre-digital evolution, which is a big deal, but then again maybe not such a big deal. So in the end you are right, it’s not Facebook we should blame. It’s ourselves. And that’s not going to happen. We deserve to be happy, not blamed.

]]>Comment on Facebook and democracy, reasons to be fearful by Alberto Acerbihttp://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=6227&cpage=1#comment-319122
Wed, 13 Dec 2017 13:41:09 +0000http://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=6227#comment-319122Hi Tom,
I appreciate and share your measured attitude regarding the dangers of social media (I am doing some work on the topic). I am not sure I understand what you mean by “Erosion of common ground”. Could you please quickly elaborate or give some reference? That would be very helpful.
Thank you,
Alberto
]]>Comment on Facebook’s persuasion architecture and human reason by Emhttp://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=6214&cpage=1#comment-318080
Mon, 13 Nov 2017 03:08:08 +0000http://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=6214#comment-318080If I were a conspiracy theorist (I’m not), I might posit that Facebook manufactured this adorable little controversy as a diversion from this: